The IDF is reported to be requesting major increases to its budget worth billions of shekels to provide it with the capability to strike Iran’s nuclear program.
The request came during early discussions of the state budget, which the government of Prime Minister Naftali Bennett seeks to pass in the coming months, Kan News reported.
Funding discussions took place in the context of the perception that indirect negotiations between the U.S. and Iran regarding the latter’s nuclear ambitions may fail, the public broadcaster reported.
Separately, sources in the security establishment accused former Prime Minister and current leader of the opposition Binyamin Netanyahu of neglecting the state’s ability to strike Iran while he was in office.
Netanyahu did not allocate the necessary funding required to resource the complex operations a strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities would entail, unnamed security sources told Channel 12.
Such an operation would require intense, lengthy preparation and the delay from the former administration could lead to a scenario where Israel is effectively “waving a gun without any bullets in it,” defense officials told Kan.
Iran will place negotiations on hold until the handover of the nation’s presidency from moderate President Hassan Rouhani to hard-liner Ebrahim Raisi next month, a diplomatic source told Reuters.